


Hearth and Home

by lady_ragnell



Series: Prompt Reposts [13]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Eliot goes to a temple, or when he’s in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn’t do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearth and Home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Silence Is the Speech of Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150355) by [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell). 



> Written for [this prompt](http://theladyragnell.tumblr.com/post/100555380658/if-i-ask-for-a-leverage-au-in-the-speech-of-love) on tumblr. For those who don't want to read a 50k fic in another fandom for worldbuilding, the short version is dominant pantheism in the modern day, primarily Greek, but others as well.
> 
> **Warning:** brief mentions of violence

_Blessed by Ares_ , they said during the war, and after it. Eliot excelled at every weapon they put into his hands. He went farther, _became_ a weapon, and they called it a blessing, and sometimes it is. Maybe it is. It gets him out safe, anyway. Lets him move on to the next job.

When Eliot goes to a temple, though, when he's in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn't do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia. It's more of a dream than anything else, but sometimes when he's burned his incense, prayed some stupid prayer, he thinks he smells bread and woodsmoke.

Eliot learns to cook, and he has to work at that, nothing ingrained or perfect about that until he makes those instincts just as sharp, makes sure that his knife is worth more than just Ares's blessing. He doesn't stay anywhere long enough to have a real hearth, but he makes a home in the ways he can.

*

“Who are you lighting a candle for?” Parker asks in a too-loud whisper.

Eliot sighs, because of course Parker would sneak up on him even here, but his “Damn it, don't do that” is half-hearted at best. “For Hestia.”

He expects her to tell him to explain, or to scoff, but sometimes Parker gets things in ways he doesn't expect her to. “That makes sense,” she says, nodding solemnly. “For the team.”

It isn't exactly for the team, or he doesn't think it is, but now that he has backup, he has something closer to a home than he's had for a long time, so maybe she's right about that. “Yeah, Parker, for the team. You want to light one too?”

After a second, she nods solemnly. “Yes. Is there anything I should be saying?”

“Just a thank you, that's what I usually do. For a family and a home.”

Parker nods, and he's only seen her look this intent when she's breaking into something before.

They stay in the alcove in the temple alone for another five minutes, shoulder to shoulder, and when they come out Nate has a plan.

*

Most of the time, the team keeps its gods away from each other. Sophie pays her tribute to the muses, but she lights a stick of incense for Janus sometimes too, saying she has great respect for the Romans and one can't ignore them entirely. Hardison complains that none of the gods have stepped forward to claim the internet yet, what nobody's been interested in the last twenty years, but he lights candles for Hermes and a collection of gods from across the world that Eliot has barely heard of, like averaged all together they might be some kind of approximation of what he wants to worship. Parker sometimes lights a candle with Eliot but doesn't say anything about any other gods.

Nate, for all his “Let's steal a curse” and making up gods for cons, doesn't seem to have anyone he directs his prayers to, even when Hardison says stupid things about Dionysus sometimes and Sophie says cutting ones about Hera at others.

That's Nate's business, though, as long as he doesn't get them all cursed for it. The gods seem fond of tricksters, though, at least sometimes, and Nate may deny it, but he's definitely that. He may as well pay his tribute to Loki, but Eliot keeps that thought safely to himself.

*

In Boston, Eliot is finally in one place long enough to build a shrine on the mantelpiece of the fireplace he's glad to have (it was the one stipulation besides security that he had for finding an apartment). Mostly, the team spends time at Nate's, but occasionally, Parker and Hardison come by Eliot's place, for dinner or to bother him or to run some kind of new scheme that's going to get them both killed by him.

Eliot's shrine collects dust, little trinkets from Parker, the detritus from Hardison's pockets, Eliot's favorite paring knife when the handle snaps, and the smell of bread when he leans in close to sniff.

“Man, I don't know how you manage to make it smell so good in here when you are always sweating,” says Hardison, laughing as they play video games on the couch. Hardison had to bring the system over, but he says he likes being at Eliot's place best, so Eliot rolls his eyes and lets him when he seems to really need the time.

“It's called basic hygiene,” says Eliot, jumping over something in the game, and looks over at his shrine.

He buys essential oil the next day, some of the pricey stuff that smells like cinnamon, and sprinkles it on the shrine. He can't let Hestia do all the work.

*

Sometime along the way, during the inevitable part of the job when things go horribly wrong and Eliot has to fight someone, he stops praying _Ares, get me through this_ and starts praying _Hestia, bring me home_.

*

Parker turns up at his apartment door the first night they're in Portland. Eliot is less surprised that she's there when he didn't give her the address and more surprised that she bothered with the door, much less knocking on it. “I'm here to help you with your shrine,” she says.

Eliot doesn't explain that shrines, especially shrines to Hestia, are built as a private business in a household, in a family. He thinks that's probably the point she's trying to make. “What, you didn't bring everyone else?”

“I told Hardison to come later, he's talking to Nate now.” She brushes past him. “I brought a model house! I thought that would be nice, she would like that.”

Eliot leans his head against the doorframe for a second before he straightens up and shuts it. “I'll bet she would, Parker, let's figure some things out.”

Hardison shows up twenty minutes later looking apologetic and curious, with some dried flowers for the shrine.

It's a weird, silent evening, putting it together, as well as the smaller tributes Eliot is sure to lay out for Ares and a few other gods, but it feels like a family, like of course these two and no one else should be helping him with his shrine.

They're easy with each other in a new way, a way that Eliot thinks they've been heading towards for a long time, but their easiness extends to Eliot, doesn't shut him out. They lean against his shoulders, tap him on the arm when he gets distracted, and they don't kiss each other while he's there but Eliot knows what they'll do as soon as he finally tells them to get out, he needs to get some sleep.

*

He's in DC when he figures out what Parker anyway has known since they came to Portland. Parker has the briefcase and the fire, and Eliot can barely drag himself upright, but he's thinking _Please, please bring her back home to me, bring them both back home_.

It's Nate and Sophie too, but Nate and Sophie have each other, and Parker and Hardison have each other, but Eliot is only now realizing that they have him too, and he has them.

*

“Help us make a shrine?” Hardison asks the day after Nate and Sophie leave Portland.

Eliot thinks that's a lot of questions, but he nods anyway, because the answer is yes and he's known it since DC, and Parker beams at him. The shrine at the restaurant is motley, poured over and blessed with Hardison's shitty beer, with a clump of carefully-snipped fur from a teddy bear, with a freshly-baked batch of bread when Eliot takes over the kitchen downstairs, so the restaurant and the apartment above it all become the home and the hearth.

“There,” says Parker finally, with something like satisfaction, when the whole building feels bathed in warmth. “It's home. It couldn't be without Eliot.”

Hardison is watching Eliot with warm eyes, and Eliot cuts a few slices of the warm bread, because it's enough to know that it's going to happen. It doesn't need to be right now. “It's home,” he agrees, and serves it out to the other two.

If the smell intensifies, he doesn't think the other two notice, but it's good enough for him.


End file.
